Case Study: John Templeton Foundation improves research impact reporting with Altmetric

Utilizing Altmetric tools to achieve institutional targets at the John Templeton Foundation

The John Templeton Foundation, a private foundation funding over $100 million in research grants, needed a cost-effective and reliable method to track the online attention and public engagement for the research it supports, as traditional metrics like citations provided an incomplete picture of impact. To address this challenge, they turned to Altmetric and implemented its Altmetric for Institutions platform.

Altmetric provided a solution that aggregates and audits online mentions from a wide range of sources. This allowed the Foundation's staff to group research outputs by grant and program area, track attention for individual projects, and filter data by project leader. The implementation gives the Foundation immediate insight into how funded research is received upon publication, enabling them to evaluate their outreach strategy's effectiveness, identify new engagement channels, and ultimately improve their future grantmaking and communication processes.

John Templeton Foundation

Steve Fitzmier

Director